Chairman
John Merrill convened the meeting and welcomed the committee to the University
of Rhode Island. Because of the upcoming competition for management
of NCAR, conflict-of-interest statements were passed out to the committee
for their signature. The agenda was reviewed and approved by the
committee.

2. Opening Remarks

UCAR
President Rick Anthes thanked John Merrill for hosting the URC. He
said that with all the issues currently facing the community—BASC
review, competition of NCAR’s management, NASA’s future—the
URC is being asked to become more involved than in the past. He
asked for the URC’s thoughtful guidance on revising NCAR’s
Strategic Plan.

3. October 2004 Meeting
Notes

Merrill reviewed
the draft notes from the October 2004 meeting. The committee approved
the notes with no changes.

4. NSF Report

Bernard
Grant,Financial Operations Specialist in ATM’s UCAR & Lower-Atmosphere
Facilities, reported that NSF’s budget for FY06 increased by 2.4%
from FY05, with Major Research Equipment & Facilities Construction
showing the largest increase (43.9%) and Research & Related Activities
remaining relatively flat with an increase of 2.7%. Grant pointed
out that Education & Human Resources decreased by 12.4%, explaining
while some programs are winding down, other programs in elementary and
high school education are being cut.

He
reported on the increase of proposals received by NSF (40,000 for FY06)
and the resulting low success rate—Geoscience’s overall approval
rate is 21%. As a result, NSF will send out more focused requests,
thereby limiting the number of proposals received. He briefed the
committee on the review of NCAR, which occurs midway through the Cooperative
Agreement (March 2006), and pointed out this review will differ from
previous ones in that it will be conducted at the institution not division
level, will be focused on the strategic direction, and will be supplemented
by ad hoc mail reviews, if necessary.

5. UCAR, NCAR and
UOP Status Reports

UCAR
President Rick Anthes reported on the usefulness of the UCAR monthly
update, on the construction of CG1 and FLO, on the success of the child
care center, and on the basically flat funded FY06 budget. He briefed
the committee on the year-long metrics study and on the updating of the
2001 Community Survey, and announced Frank Cushing’s new position
of Chief of Staff on the House Appropriations Committee.

Jack
Fellows, UOP Director and Vice-President of Corporate Affairs, in his
overview of the eight programs of UOP, highlighted the success of COMET’s
training programs and educational material and the continuing expansion
of GLOBE. He announced that Karyn Sawyer, former director of JOSS,
has accepted the position as Associate Director of EOL (Earth Observing
Laboratory) and in the transition some of the activities of JOSS will
move into EOL, but that the field campaigns will be left in JOSS. In
conclusion, Fellows emphasized the importance of the community to be
united in advocacy for strong science funding, because the current issues
of interest to Congress are war, taxes and social security, not science.

NCAR
Director Tim Killeen reported that the NCAR Executive Committee was now
in place with the final associate director appointment, Diana Josephson
of SERE Laboratory. He continued by reporting that a zero-base
budget review was conducted by the NCAR Executive Committee. He
listed other items of interest: NCAR is currently undergoing a
survey of collaborative activities, the fourth wave of Scientist I’s
are being interviewed and six Senior Scientists have opted for the phased
retirement package, and new facilities are being constructed for ACD
and HAO. He noted the growth in peer-reviewed and collaborative
publications, attributing it to the increase in the number of young scientists
and the increased focus on interdisciplinary research. He reported
that NCAR’s FY06 budget decreased by 2%, resulting in downsizing
some NCAR programs. He concluded his remarks by listing a few of
NCAR’s highlights, some of which were: HIAPER – to
be deployed FY06, the National Lambda Rail (NLR) – to be fully
operational this summer, and RICO – a successful field program
that had student participation as a major component of the project.

6. Review of Non-Core
and Non-NSF Proposals

Subcommittee
Chairwoman Kerry Cook reported on the ten proposals, selected from proposals
submitted during the period July through December 2004, that were examined
by the subcommittee (Cook, Jim Hansen, Michael Morgan, and ex-officio
John Merrill). Cook voiced the subcommittee’s concern on
the responses to collaboration; in some proposals not enough information
was supplied to show convincing collaboration. It was suggested
that the subcommittee speak directly to the NCAR or UOP Director’s
Office and either request additional information or request the full
proposal. Merrill requested that the procedure statement be revised
to reflect the above suggestion. By having direct contact with
the Director Offices during their review, the subcommittee will then
resolve any issues they have before the URC meeting. The role of
postdocs in proposals was discussed and the subcommittee requested that
more explicit information be provided on their work. After additional
discussion on salary support for NCAR employees, the URC accepted the
Subcommittee report.

7. Update on the
NCAR Faculty Fellowship Program

Sepi
Yalda, Chairwoman of the URC subcommittee appointed to review applicants
to the NCAR Faculty Fellowship Program, reported on their results. Yalda
named the subcommittee members—David Karoly, Everette Joseph and
Lisa White—and then reviewed the selection criteria used for the
ranking of applicants. She said that each member reviewed the applicant
material and that they all came up with the same ranking for the five
applicants, independently. She added that the subcommittee thought
there were too few applicants and also that the timeline was too short.

The
URC endorsed the subcommittee’s selection of applicants; the ranked
list will be given to the ASP Director for final selection. In
trying to increase the applicant pool in the future, the URC recommended
that the Faculty Fellowship Program be advertised at the October Members’ meeting.

8. SOARS

Rajul
Pandya, Director of Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research
and Science (SOARS), outlined this very successful undergraduate summer
program for ethnically diverse students. He continued by stating
that this internship provides students with opportunities for research
and access to mentors, experience in giving presentations at science
meetings and in writing seminars, and advice on how to get into graduate
school. Pandya then offered scenarios to broaden the participation
of SOARS throughout the community, one of which was to coordinate a national
summer internship with universities and other National Labs. In
the discussion that followed, the need to target students in community
colleges and to expand the scope of research opportunities was expressed. The
URC ended the discussion by endorsing SOARS and pledging to encourage
the participation of UCAR members in the next SOARS proposal.

9. Revised NCAR Strategic
Plan and the NSF Competition for the Management of NCAR

Anthes
started the discussion on NSF’s competition for NCAR’s management
by stressing the importance of confidentiality to ensure a clean and
fair process.

Killeen
reported that in October 2001 the Trustees approved the NCAR strategic
plan, NCAR as an Integrator. Killeen asked the URC to help
in the revision of this document. The URC agreed to provide comments
on the current version and ideas for the planned revision to Merrill
who would then compile the written statements and forward the compilation
to Anthes and Killeen by April 15. Killeen added that a retreat
in July will be organized to discuss the Strategic Plan revision and
that he hoped for URC participation.

Science
Talks by University of Rhode Island Students

The
following students from the Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) gave
presentations to the URC: Heather Saffert on measuring water quality,
Tobias Kukulka on the dynamics of air-sea interaction, Colleen Mouw on
biological oceanography, and Matt O’Reagan on Arctic ice core drilling.

The
meeting recessed for a reception held at the University Club on
the Kingston campus of the University of Rhode Island.

THURSDAY, 7 April

An
informal breakfast was held with the URC and invited graduate students
from the University of Rhode Island.

10. Planning for the October
Members’ Meeting Agenda

In
discussing the agenda for the Members’ Meeting, Fellows suggested
the following ideas: having an open house, inviting an advocacy
keynote speaker, and having the reception at the new HIAPER hangar.

The
URC was enthusiastic about having an Open House at the October meeting
and then discussed the possibility of also inviting an advocacy speaker. Gene
Takle stressed the importance of having a two-way interaction during
the Open House, of sharing views between university and NCAR scientists,
and of having the participation of young scientists. The time constraints
involved in allowing Members to tour more than one site were questioned. Other
concerns expressed were keeping the size of the group small enough to
foster meaningful interaction, pitching the talks at a level that is
important to the general atmospheric scientist, and keeping the reporting
to a minimum in order to encourage dialog. Merrill concluded that
a program committee was needed to decide topics and to make the meeting
interactive—S.T. Wu and Gene Takle were appointed to work with
UCAR staff on the format of the October meeting.

11. Unstructured Discussion

Merrill
reported on the Richard Grotjahn complaint—the loss of “atmospheric
science” in the name of the new lab – Earth & Sun Systems. It
was noted that many universities are having this trend in broadening
the names of their departments and becoming more interdisciplinary in
nature. Merrill said that he responded to Grotjahn in February,
saying that after consideration of this matter, no action to discuss
alternative names for the laboratories will be pursued.

Jim
Hansen then questioned the utility of the liaison role. Some
URC members were supportive of the role while some expressed no strong
feeling one way or another. It was pointed out that the liaison
served as another avenue of interaction between NCAR and universities
and while the reports to the URC might not be useful, the direct interaction
between the URC member and the division is beneficial. Also noted
was that ATD and SCD have advisory panels and meetings in place that
are ideal for liaison interaction. Merrill concluded that this
issue needs to be fleshed out and discussed at a later time.

The committee went into Executive Session at 11am and adjourned at
noon.